What Lance Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey

Lance Armstrong told chat show host Oprah Winfrey on Thursday he had taken banned performance-enhancing drugs on each of his record seven Tour de France wins. He said they included erythropoietin, the drug at the centre of the 1998 Tour de France doping scandal, human growth hormone and blood doping. Here are a few important quotes by Armstrong from the first part of his televised interview with Winfrey.

"Yes" - On whether he had ever used performance drugs in his cycling career.

"Not in that generation, and I'm not here to talk about others in that generation. It's been well-documented. I didn't invent the culture, but I didn't try to stop the culture, and that's my mistake, and that's what I have to be sorry for, and that's what something and the sport is now paying the price because of that" - on whether he could have won without cheating.

"I don't know that I have a great answer. I will start my answer by saying this is too late. It's too late for probably most people. And that's my fault. I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times" - On why he decided to finally come clean after years of denials.

"The idea that anyone was forced or pressured or encouraged is not true" - on whether he forced his team mates to cheat.

"My cocktail, so to speak, was only EPO. But not a lot, transfusions, and transfusions. Which, in a weird way, I almost justified because of my history, obviously, with testicular cancer" - on his preferred drug.

"It did not feel wrong ... I did not feel bad about it" - On how he felt at the time.

"I was a bully in the sense that I tried to control the narrative" - On accusations that he bullied people.

"I am flawed. Deeply flawed. I think we all have our own flaws" - On his character.

"I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn back trust and apologize to people for the rest of my life" - On what his admission means for his future.

"The idea that anyone was forced or pressured or encouraged is not true" - on whether he forced his team mates to cheat.

India is planning to buy up to 189 of the Rafale fighter jets currently being used by France to bomb Islamist militants in Mali

This handout picture released and taken on January 15, 2013 by French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) shows a French Rafale fighter jet refueling during a flight as part of the 'Serval' operation in Mali. Since January 11, 2013, French forces have been supporting an offensive by Malian troops against Islamist rebels, who have controlled the north of the vast country since April.